Author | James Davison Hunter |
---|---|
Genre | Political Science |
Publisher | Basic Books |
Publication date | December 2, 1991 |
ISBN | 9780465015337 |
Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America is a book written by James Davison Hunter and published in 1991. [1] It concerns the idea of a struggle to define American public life between two cultures: the progressives and the orthodox. The book illustrates its framework of historical analysis through several of the contemporary issues of the time: abortion rights, school prayer, gay rights, and more. [2]
Progressive and orthodox views are primarily systems of moral understanding. He identifies orthodoxy as a viewpoint through which moral truth is static, universal, and sanctioned through divine powers; contrasting progressivism, which sees moral truth as evolving and contextual. These two groups are locked in an everlasting "culture war" [3] to assert dominion over the various institutional and systemic entities influenced by contemporary cultural praxis, most visibly the governing branches of America. [4] [5]
In historiography, historical revisionism is the reinterpretation of a historical account. It usually involves challenging the orthodox scholarly views or narratives regarding a historical event, timespan, or phenomenon by introducing contrary evidence or reinterpreting the motivations and decisions of the people involved. Revision of the historical record can reflect new discoveries of fact, evidence, and interpretation as they come to light. The process of historical revision is a common, necessary, and usually uncontroversial process which develops and refines the historical record in order to make it more complete and accurate.
Harold Dwight Lasswell was an American political scientist and communications theorist. He earned his bachelor's degree in philosophy and economics and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He was a professor of law at Yale University. He served as president of the American Political Science Association, American Society of International Law, and World Academy of Art and Science.
A moral panic is a widespread feeling of fear that some evil person or thing threatens the values, interests, or well-being of a community or society. It is "the process of arousing social concern over an issue", usually perpetuated by moral entrepreneurs and mass media coverage, and exacerbated by politicians and lawmakers. Moral panic can give rise to new laws aimed at controlling the community.
A culture war is a form of cultural conflict between different social groups who struggle to politically impose their own ideology upon mainstream society.
Postfeminism is an alleged decrease in popular support for feminism from the 1990s onwards. It can be considered a critical way of understanding the changed relations between feminism, femininity and popular culture. The term is sometimes confused with subsequent feminisms such as fourth-wave feminism, postmodern feminism, and xenofeminism.
Ludwig Gumplowicz was a Polish sociologist, jurist, historian, and political scientist, who taught constitutional and administrative law at the University of Graz.
Critical race theory (CRT) is an academic field focused on the relationships between social conceptions of race and ethnicity, social and political laws, and media. CRT also considers racism to be systemic in various laws and rules, not based only on individuals' prejudices. The word critical in the name is an academic reference to critical theory rather than criticizing or blaming individuals.
Suicide: A Study in Sociology is an 1897 book written by French sociologist Émile Durkheim. It was the second methodological study of a social fact in the context of society. It is ostensibly a case study of suicide, a publication unique for its time that provided an example of what the sociological monograph should look like.
Sociology of terrorism is a field of sociology that seeks to understand terrorism as a social phenomenon. The field defines terrorism, studies why it occurs and evaluates its impacts on society. The sociology of terrorism draws from the fields of political science, history, economics and psychology. The sociology of terrorism differs from critical terrorism studies, emphasizing the social conditions that enable terrorism. It also studies how individuals as well as states respond to such events.
Carl Bowman is an American sociologist, who is widely recognized for his studies of Anabaptist religious groups and is perhaps the foremost expert on the social and cultural history of the Church of the Brethren.
Jeffrey Roger Goodwin is a professor of sociology at New York University. He has served as chair of several sections of the American Sociological Association (ASA) and was coeditor of the ASA journal Contexts from 2004 to 2007.
The following events related to sociology occurred in the 1980s.
Sociology is the scientific study of human society that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. Regarded as a part of both the social sciences and humanities, sociology uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about social order and social change. Sociological subject matter ranges from micro-level analyses of individual interaction and agency to macro-level analyses of social systems and social structure. Applied sociological research may be applied directly to social policy and welfare, whereas theoretical approaches may focus on the understanding of social processes and phenomenological method.
James Davison Hunter is an American sociologist and originator of the term "culture war" in his 1991 book Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America. Hunter is the LaBrosse-Levinson Distinguished Professor of Religion, Culture, and Social Theory at the University of Virginia and the founder and executive director of the university's Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. He is also a senior fellow at the Trinity Forum.
Gandhi as a Political Strategist is a book about the political strategies used by Mahatma Gandhi, and their ongoing implications and applicability outside of their original Indian context. Written by Gene Sharp, the book was originally published in the United States in 1979. An Indian edition was published in 1999. The book has been reviewed in several professional journals.
Neo-Marxism is a collection of Marxist schools of thought originating from 20th-century approaches to amend or extend Marxism and Marxist theory, typically by incorporating elements from other intellectual traditions such as critical theory, psychoanalysis, or existentialism. Neo-Marxism comes under the broader framework of the New Left. In a sociological sense, neo-Marxism adds Max Weber's broader understanding of social inequality, such as status and power, to Marxist philosophy.
Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin was a Russian American sociologist and political activist, who contributed to the social cycle theory.
Fifty Years of Freedom: A Study of the Development of the Ideas of A. S. Neill is a 1972 intellectual biography of the British pedagogue A. S. Neill by Ray Hemmings. It traces how Homer Lane, Wilhelm Reich, Sigmund Freud and others influenced Neill as he developed the "Summerhill idea", the philosophy of child autonomy behind his Summerhill School. The book follows Neill's early life and career in rural, Calvinist Scotland and continues through the influence of his mentors, Lane and Reich, and the origins of Summerhill after World War I. Written fifty years from Summerhill's founding, Fifty Years is a sociological and historical analysis of Neill's ideas in the context of intellectual and educational trends both during Neill's life and at the time of publication. Hemmings also surveyed progressive school leaders about Neill's impact on the field and reported their perception of influence on teacher–pupil relations. Fifty Years was first published in England in 1972 by George Allen and Unwin and was later renamed Children's Freedom: A. S. Neill and the Evolution of the Summerhill Idea for its 1973 American publication by Schocken Books.
Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance is a 1985 book on everyday forms of rural class conflict as illustrated in a Malaysian village, written by anthropologist James C. Scott and published by Yale University Press.
Schooling and the Struggle for Public Life is a non-fiction book about critical pedagogy by Henry Giroux. In the book Giroux analyzes and critiques various concepts of pedagogy, arguing that schools should not be subservient to the existing power structure but should instead be sites of struggle and exist in solidarity with the oppressed. He adopts the framework of citizenship education, defining citizenship as the struggle for empowerment.